Do you feel bad for me?

“Make them do ?? Oh no. I’m a benevolent ruler.” She replied, placing her hand over her heart. “What can you do with an army of children, anyway ??” Her eyes shot open, before she began frantically shaking her head. “No I can’t see you react to me.” Winnie had no idea why Cadence’s opinion on her videos mattered when they had just met, but it did. She wasn’t sure how to explain it.

Cadence chuckled incredulously, clearly a little tipsy. “What can’t you do with an army of children? I’m sure you can think of a few things to glamor up your life.” She put her phone away, rolling her eyes playfully. “Okay, okay. I won’t embarrass you. Seriously, I’m sure they’re fine.”

“Well…Now that you’ve pointed it out…Yeah. I guess I kind of do.” Winnie giggled to herself, never viewing her fans as that way. “Oh no!! You’re so going to laugh at them. It’ll be so embarrassing…”

“Princess of the munchkin people,” Cadence teased. “What are you gonna make them do?” she asked, giving Winnie a nudge with her shoulder. “Oh yeah? Maybe I should look you up right now then.”

“No. Not really. I didn’t have an independent woman to look up to. Princesses weren’t strong back then. Now these kids have me.” She said, giggling to herself. She knew she sounded crazy - maybe even a little cult-ish. But it was true.

“Kinda sounds like you have an army of children at your will,” she teased, taking another drink. “I’m checking out these videos as soon as I get home.”

“Usually teenagers and a little older. I think they like to imagine I have this amazing glamorous life and like look up to me like I’m so great role model.” Winnie noted, not really knowing the formula she used for her success. It all just sort of fell in her lap. “Yeah, it is. I’m pretty lucky.” She added, with a bright smile on her face. Her cheeks seeming to flush every time Cadence called her ‘princess’

“And that doesn’t feel, I don’t know -- weird, to you?” Cadence asked, her expression betraying a combination of amusement and bewilderment. She couldn’t tell if Winnie blushed because she was embarrassed or because she was flattered.

“Look. I still don’t know how I got here. I don’t get it either.” She admitted, shrugging her shoulders before finishing the barely anything left in her glass. “Well when you put it that way, it sounds like I have this army of children at my will…I don’t know. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal to them. Sometimes people just like to unwind and watch someone else’s life unfold instead of theirs.”

“Children? How old is your audience?” Winnie was proving to be an almost endless source of amusement for Cadence tonight. “I don’t get it. Must be a generation gap. But hey, if it puts food on the table and glamor in your day, I’d say that’s a pretty sweet gig, princess.” 

“I know, I know.” She said holding her hand up in defense. “It sounds so dumb.” In a way it was. That now making videos in your bedroom could be a career. “I’m a musician first, but I do a lot of other stuff too. My fans - don’t laugh, I call them my pooh bears. Well they never seem to mind what I upload. So I sort of do whatever I want.” She was now laughing at herself. She didn’t have many friends in her social media world. She didn’t have someone to talk about all of this with. “On youtube? two million.”

“God, two million,” Cadence repeated, disbelief laden in her tone. “And what, they just hang on your every word? That’s something else...” She shook her head, finding the whole concept to be utterly bizarre. “I guess if there ever were a modern day princess.”

“Technically my reign is over the internet.” She joked, playing along to the little fairy tale they created. “I’m a youtuber - I think we call ourselves ‘influencers’ now.” Even after eight years, it still felt odd to say out loud. Something about it felt ingenious. Like it wasn’t a real career.

Cadence couldn’t help but let out a cackle. “Influencer, huh?” Out of everything Winnie had said to her tonight, that may have been the most ridiculous. “What, you’re like a vlogger? How many followers do you have?” she asked, struggling to contain her amusement. Cadence wasn’t big on social media -- the few internet personalities she did follow were far from the type of fashion crowd she figured Winnie must belong to.

Winnie pouted, spinning her fingers through her hair. “That’s so awful. I don’t understand why people do that. Be so cruel.” She replied. She didn’t always have an overly positive attitude. After her trauma, she decided to see a world in a much better light. It helped her cope with whatever harsh truths were thrown at her. “Yeah. I don’t think I could handle it. At least with my job, all the negativity isn’t to my face.”

“What, the Princess gig?” Cadence teased, taking another drink. Now she was curious: if Winnie never had a real job, then what did she do?

“I would if I made it up here on my own and not because my dad put me here.” Sure, she had some success in her own career. But if it wasn’t for the money she was born into, she never would of got this point of ‘internet royalty’ as she called it. “Yes, duh. Of course. But I’m nice to workers - not workers that sounds mean - people. Others - like do you get yelled at a lot ??”

“We’re people and we’re workers, yes,” she explained, chuckling as she nodded. It amused Cadence how careful Winnie was not to offend her, especially given she wasn’t taking it very seriously at all. “Sure. Yelled at, blamed, you name it.” She shrugged, figuring it was almost a rite of passage for someone struggling to afford rent in a big city. “You really shouldn’t try it some time.”

“Oh gosh. Don’t say that. That makes me feel like I’m on some pedestal or something.” She said gritting her teeth. Winnie never did like the idea of income separating people. Her friends were her friends, class didn’t matter in her head. “Is it that bad ?? I’ve technically…never had a real job. So I don’t really know.”

“Shush. You work that pedestal, girl,” Cadence teased. She didn’t mind the class disparity so long as Winnie wasn’t obnoxious about it, and she wasn’t. It was all in good fun, though Cadence hoped that her jabs at her wealth weren’t taken the wrong way. “Uh, I dunno, you’ve gone to the store, right?” It didn’t surprise her that this young woman hadn’t had a real job. 

@cadence-rowan

Connor had headed into the city for the day to check on the apartment that he and Harmony still kept there, and to attend and farewell luncheon for a professor he had worked with at Columbia who was retiring. It was somehow freeing to be on campus without any deadlines to be worrying about, and so he was taking his time wandering around before heading back home when he spotted a woman who looked a little lost. “Hey!” he called out, “Everything alright? If you’re looking for something I can probably help you find it, I know the campus pretty well at this point.”

Cadence froze in place as she was called out to, her eyes widening as she stood there awkwardly. It’s not like there was any rule stating that a non-student couldn’t be on campus, but she somehow felt wrong for being there when she wasn’t attending. Still, she wasn’t about to let anyone here know that. “Oh, uh... yeah. The physics building?” she answered nervously.

“Peasant, what no ?! You’re way to pretty to be a common folk.” She replied, covering her ears, like she was allergic to negativity. “There’s nothing wrong with retail. And college is great !! I never made it past high school.” Not like she didn’t have a ton of full ride offers. Her sister’s passing and her own kidnapping completely sidelining her. Back then she was in no shape to go away to the city.

“Hey, nothing wrong with us common folk,” she said with a mock southern accent, swinging her arm playfully. Suddenly, she felt a bit stupid for lying, given Winnie never attended college herself, though she assumed she wasn’t talking to a fellow dropout. “There’s plenty of things wrong with retail,” she added, taking another drink.

“I don’t - usually. I know that’s hard to believe. But i’m completely different after one glass of wine. It’s a pretty big flaw of mine. Although my friends might disagree.” Again, she found herself spewing meaningless jargon out at this somewhat stranger. But even in her semi-intoxicated state, she didn’t want this whole ordeal to be one-sided. “Well you know what I do for a living. I’m a princess…What about you ?? And don’t say that. Everyone’s interesting in their own way.”

Cadence chuckled again. “If you’re a princess, then I guess that makes me a peasant,” she joked. “I work retail,” Cadence said, nodding candidly. “And I’m going to Colombia,” she was quick to add -- almost on impulse. That was a lie; she wasn’t attending Colombia, or any college for that matter, but something in her needed to measure up in some way to Winnie.

“I promise I don’t rant this much when I’m sober.” She sensed that she rambled too much. She stopped herself there, finishing off the contents of her wine glass, cutting herself off for the night. “Winnie.” She replied simply, spinning to face her in her chair. “I’m going to to stop ranting to you now…I feel like you know so much about me, but I know nothing about you.”

Cadence chuckled, shaking her head subtly. “I don’t really like talking about myself,” she said, taking another drink. That was true enough; she would much rather listen to Winnie rant and rave about glamor or whatever else was going through her head than have to disclose intimate information about herself. But she figured if the woman thought it was an unequal conversation, she may have to be polite. “What do you wanna know? I’m not that interesting, trust me.”

“I do. That’s the thing. The world rather see me show off my designer clothes, not watch me play violin. As if I haven’t practiced every day to get to this point. No. Money I was born with is far more important.” She continued to ramble, eventually cutting herself from keep going. ‘Cause she could talk for hours about her talent. And how easily it was ignored. She herself seemed to push it back sometimes. “Yeah. The attention is part of it….But it’s also good attention. Like attention that matters…” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m tipsy. I don’t think I’m making any sense.”

Cadence shifted her eyes somewhat awkwardly, sensing she may have accidentally uncorked something heavy with all of her prodding. “You’re good,” she assured Winnie, sensing there was a lot more to the woman than just a pretty face. If anything, that seemed to be a burden on her -- though Cadence reckoned her proclivity towards glamor wasn’t doing her any favors. “I’m Cade, by the way,” she said, offering Winnie a nervous smile.